


New Year's Resolution

by lynndyre, threewalls



Series: Shadowverse [11]
Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Timelines, M/M, Mad Science, Masturbation, Partnership, Plans, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-11
Updated: 2007-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:04:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre, https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>Watari had begged off to work on a personal project, which he has, in a way, for all that he is currently taking a well-deserved break.</cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year's Resolution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_Ganesh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/gifts).



When Watari comes, he's loud, a breaking cry that surprises him echoing off the glass panelling.

"That's six days of build-up for you," he says to himself. "Let's not do this again soon." Pulling a handful of tissues from the box beside him, Watari wipes, tucks and zips his pants up-- and then relaxes back into the yielding embrace of his laboratory's well-worn sofa.

Konoe's 'traditional' New Years' game of Hyakunin-isshu has everyone who isn't in the field out of the office tonight. Watari had begged off to work on a personal project, which he has, in a way, for all that he is currently taking a well-deserved break. If his co-workers happened to make the unjustified leap from 'personal' to 'gender-changing potion,' that's fine with him. His experiments in that direction certainly aren't academic, but they're also the perfect smokescreen for his other, even more super secret personal project, the one even his partner doesn't know about.

Watari has spent much longer in the planning stage this time, aiming for better than just a prototype (and he's easily distracted, both by his mind's fast flow of intriguing ideas and his partner's peer-aiding work ethic). His successes with his birds have been promising; building something for Tatsumi will be a project of an entirely other order, but he's confident the principles are similar enough. Watari has all the facilities, the relevant data. He'll get it right, perfect, the first time.

Watari may be the only person in the office who's glad that the Earl is an autonomous pervert, that he had happened to have so many photographs of a man everyone else has forgotten (a perfectly poised man in a three-piece suit Watari wouldn't have been able to pick out of a crowd; his partner, but not his partner, and that hasn't stopped being odd). Tatsumi smiled far less often than Watari would have guessed, but then, the photos had been taken during the war; Tatsumi rarely smiled in the ones where he wore nothing at all. Watari keeps the latter in their own folder for quick reference. For his purposes, they're most useful: a wealth of anatomical detail, from several angles and positions, and each with an in-shot yardstick (Tsuzuki) for scale. Watari has spent so long with these particular images that he can recall them in his sleep-- and isn't that just the problem?

Watari aims the wad of tissues at a waste paper basket across the kitchenette. He misses, but then 002 waddles over and flips it in with her beak. Watari waves his thanks and sinks back into the couch.

He's just spent the evening airbrushing the 'yardstick' out of a copied set of images (he always made a backup, or three), because it's far easier than erasing Tsuzuki from his memories. He'd needed the slideshow of those images cycling in his mind for their objective aesthetic pleasure not to be overridden by--

At the onsen, he'd told Tsuzuki nothing had happened; Tsuzuki had been grateful, said he was so drunk that he had no memories at all. They haven't spoken of it since, but it hasn't been too awkward. Tsuzuki's new partner's still around. The kid's a better distraction than anything Watari could have come up with himself.

Watari's PDA beeps once from his labcoat pocket. A fraction of a second later, a message appears in Watari's inbox, over his image software, behind his eyes.

 _Watari--  
Tsuzuki and Kurosaki have returned to the office to wish you a happy new year.  
Tatsumi_

"Thanks for--" Watari shivers as he feels cool pressure uncoiling from where his head rests on the couch. It had slipped his mind as he worked, but now the thought dogging him all week returns. Just when is Tatsumi watching, unheard, unfelt? They haven't talked about _that_ since the onsen, either. Watari thinks of the pictures, of the man he'd sworn that Tatsumi would be again, but he'd decided back when the Earl handed them over that this project would be a surprise. "The warning. And happy new year to you, partner."

Another machine, a door sensor, chimes as Tsuzuki and the kid enter the lab downstairs. Their voices travel up the stairwell behind him. Watari stands and checks himself over again, runs his fingers through his hair to look less sofa-mussed. His hair curls gently around his fingers.

 _Likewise, Watari-san, and to many more._

**Author's Note:**

> Hyakunin-isshu is the same classical poem 'snap' played at Konoe's in the manga.


End file.
